World Colonial

On 1/5/2024 at 11:11 AM, GoldFinger1969 said:

Do you watch CNBC  or FoxBusiness or Bloomberg TV ?  They mention valuations and fundaamentals all day long, WC.  I get 25-30 research PDFs a day....that's all they talk about.

I've watched it in the past.  It's not that I don't know anything you are telling me.  I disagree with your premises because it's not valid.

On 1/5/2024 at 11:10 AM, GoldFinger1969 said:

Sure they can.  But fundamentals are only 1 leg in the 3-legged stool of stock analysis.  You also have to look at starting valuation and interest rates.  Sometimes political considerations (i.e., China vs. Hong Kong/South Korea/Japan) comes into play.

No one can quantify the price from what you wrote.  Interest rates usually correlate to stock prices, but it's not mechanical.  

I'm aware starting valuations are relevant.  I never claimed otherwise.

On 1/5/2024 at 11:06 AM, GoldFinger1969 said:

Every single market you cited is HIGHER today than years earlier -- except Hong Kong/China for obvious reasons.  All that is telling me is that stocks do great over long periods of times...earnings tend to go up (about 7% a year for the U.S.)....GDP growth is important which we and Asia have and Europe does not....and starting valuations matter.

Really, where is the evidence for this?

What is the obvious reason for China and Hong Kong?  Because it doesn't fit your claims?

On 1/5/2024 at 11:06 AM, GoldFinger1969 said:

You're hung up on EMH.  Nobody buys or sells stocks based on textbook theories.  Forget about EMH -- unless they talk about it on CNBC. 

Belief in "fundamentals" is a form of EMH.  There is no evidence that stocks or any financial assets are valued from "fundamentals".  Everyone just assumes it.

On 1/5/2024 at 1:21 AM, GoldFinger1969 said:

Yes, but that doesn't mean the P/E is irrelevant.  You need to know if earnings have collapsed.  Clearly, they haven't.  So the P/E ratio IS useful right now.  If we enter a recession, I agree:  best to buy at 25x EPS instead of 16x EPS (although the trend in recent years has been for the multiple to collapse MORE than earnings).

Why would I make an exception for recessions?  If earnings are a legitimate metric to value stocks, then the P/E ratio should be valid in all market environments.  This is another rationalization.

On 1/5/2024 at 1:21 AM, GoldFinger1969 said:

Markets and the public change and so do stocks.  MSFT went public in 1986 and didn't pay a dividend until about 20 years later but it went up 100-fold in that time.  AMZN has never paid a dividend and her stock is up 1000-fold.  WMT never paid a public dividend until after 30 years as a public company and returned 34% a year.

All those companies GREW -- they were GROWTH stocks -- and their stock prices reflected those realities.  If you were advising Sam Walton, he would have paid a dividend in the early-1970's and never toppled Sears-Roebuck.  And if you were a stockbroker, you would not have recommended buying WMT in the depths of the 1974 bear market...because the S&P 500 sold for 6x EPS and WMT sold for 12x EPS, 2x the market.  You would have passed on the stock at $12...even though it would have been A BARGAIN AT $600/share !!! 

Yes, there is change, a psychological change.

I've told you that to 99%+ of shareholders, there is a difference between the company and the stock certificate.  Yes, I agree it's an unorthodox view, but that's what practically everyone actually buys, a stock certificate.  They own a piece of paper whose value isn't contingent upon what most believe. 

Look at the examples I gave you in my above post, especially the foreign markets.  I didn't include those examples to get an answer from you, because the "fundamentals" don't and can't explain this performance.  The purpose is to demonstrate that this belief is invalid.  If "fundamentals" actually explain prices, there is no possibility for these results.

I already know you are going to disagree, because you're going to reply with some other supposed reason to explain it which doesn't have anything to do with anything.

The price is what it is, regardless of what it is.  It isn't because of "fundamentals".

On 1/5/2024 at 1:21 AM, GoldFinger1969 said:

These aren't fallacies promoted by "Wall Street" -- even folks who disagree with WS marketing agree that numbers are numbers.  You can quibble with the numbers but you can't say they aren't representative of the fundamentals.

I absolutely can dispute this claim, because neither you nor anyone else can demonstrate otherwise. It's not incumbent upon me or anyone else to disprove this conventional belief.  You actually believe in a form of EMH without admitting it.  EMH is nonsense.  Academics never demonstrated EMH.  They just couldn't explain prices by supposed causal events, so they just made this theory up.

I explained to you the implied concensus agreement on the impact of psychology on various "bubble" stocks: serial money losers, "disruptors", "meme stocks", "unicorns".  So, am I supposed to believe these are valued on "fundamentals" too?  If not, based exactly on what?

How about CSCO?  How does its performance explain the stock price?  It's 35% lower today versus 2001 even as it's a much larger far more profitable company.  

Or how about these markets?  How do you explain this?  You're going to tell me that this price performance is explained by earnings and GDP?

Index               12/23                 COVID low      GFC peak       dot.com peak Other

S&P 500          4559                2191                1555                1553                442 (10/1994)

Stoxx600         459                  306                  400                  407                  125 (10/1994)

Switzerland     10879              9036                9548                7938                2675 (10/1994)

ASX 200          7040                5022                6851                3386                1857 (10/1994)

Shanghai         3040                2646                5560                1953                794 (10/1994)

Hong Kong      17559              22519              27254              18397              16820 (7/1997)

Singapore        3094                2381                3726                2528                Not available

Korea              2496                1439                2085                1066                1145 (10/1994)

Taiwan            17287              8523                9807                10393              10512 (1/1990)

Thailand          1397                1105                924                  499                  1695 (10/1993)

Dot.com peak = late 1999. early 2000           GFC peak = mid-2007 to mid-2008               

Stoxx600 is Europe’s S&P 500                      All indices in local currency

Source: CNBC.com

On 1/4/2024 at 9:36 PM, VKurtB said:

This idea that P/E ratios are somehow bogus is itself the bogus part of the conversation. It’s complete poppycock. P/E ratios are a perfectly fine metric. Whether those earnings are paid as dividends, or used to buy back stock, or used to finance growth in key areas, or EVEN to engage in M&A activities, thus making it unnecessary to finance that with debt, is about 99% immaterial. It ALL becomes shareholder value. Now of course if they want to use it to pay obscene management salaries, or pursue DEI activities, that is an invitation to sell immediately and run for the hills, and I shall, right after I vote down that garbage with my proxy form. 

I already explained your objection.

There is a difference between the company and the stock certificate.

You're also still assuming that prices are contingent upon "fundamentals", implicitly a belief in the Efficient Market Hypothesis. 

It's complete bunk.  No one can explain prices from "fundamentals".  It's accepted as a truism.

Double post

On 1/2/2024 at 1:03 AM, GoldFinger1969 said:

In the old days, the DJIA would be a buy at a 6% dividend yield and a sell at a 3% dividend yield.  But that encompassed a RISING rate environment from 1946-81.  We've had a FALLING rate environment for decades and even with the latest rise we are still historically low in yields.

Interest rates are also psychologically determined.  No one can explain interest rates from "fundamentals" either.  I've explained this numerous times before and can do it again.  It certainly isn't due to any supposed omnipotence by the modern economic priesthood, those working at central banks and government treasury departments.

On 1/2/2024 at 1:03 AM, GoldFinger1969 said:

Net-Net:  yields are not going back to the old levels on stocks because today's stocks are less-risky, more transparent, and in many respects CHEAPER with more defensive MOATS than their predecessors.

Compare today's Tech Titans to the 1970's "Nifty Fifty" stocks.  No comparision in terms of market dominance and ability to adapt.

More of your belief in false causality.  Everything you believe is entirely the result of the asset mania.

Read some history.  You're read "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" and "Manias, Panics, and Crashes".  I presume you have.  The level of speculation and valuation dwarfs these precedents and the only reason anyone will believe it has no relevance or doesn't matter is because they believe in a form of modern alchemy as I wrote in a prior post in this thread a few days ago.  

Yes, I am aware of these "defensive moats" which is actually mostly a code word for oligopolistic and monopolistic corporate behavior.  But since "fundamentals" don't determined prices, it doesn't mean what you claim anyway.

On 1/2/2024 at 1:03 AM, GoldFinger1969 said:

But you are eliminating a huge change from 1982:  the ability to buy back stock.  Before then, companies either hoarded cash or paid dividends.  Today, they can buy back stock and many companies prefer to do this. You have to compare shareholder yield (dividend yield + stock buyback yield) to have a valid number.

No, I didn't forget anything.  I didn't address it in my prior posts but anticipated you would make this claim.

Stock buybacks don't "return cash" to shareholders.  That's another Wall Street lie.

Stock buybacks increase demand for what “investors” actually bought – the stock certificate – but they don’t actually receive anything from the company, unless something is supposed to include an increase in an accounting number, what's reflected in EPS.  That's why this conventional claim is not accurate.

If you sell your shares, you don’t own it, do you?  So, you didn’t get anything just like shareholders who sold don’t receive dividends either. Selling is selling and who you sold your shares to doesn’t alter the outcome. 

It’s not “returning cash” to shareholders if the company buys it but different if sold to someone else.  Shareholders who didn’t sell obviously didn’t receive anything.   A legal claim to a higher proportional share of an accounting number (EPS) isn’t cash. 

And before you answer, I know why management does it and why many shareholders favor it.  I know that stock buybacks usually correlate to higher stock prices, but this still doesn't support the conventional claim.

On 1/2/2024 at 1:03 AM, GoldFinger1969 said:

No, it shouldn't.  And no it didn't. 

Stocks going back to 1926 have had dividends account for about 40% of the total return when one reinvests the dividend.  But that encompasses DECADES of high-yields for the DJIA and S&P 500 (the DJIA yielded 10% in 1932).  Not until 1956 did the yield on stocks fall below that of bonds -- beause most investors had long memories and remembered stocks going down 85-90% from 1929-32.

I already know this.  It's not news to me.

Yes, the change in the relative return between dividends and appreciation is due to psychology, exactly as I have been telling you.  That's exactly why "investors" are willing to accept such low yields now whereas they wouldn't before.

On 1/2/2024 at 1:03 AM, GoldFinger1969 said:

Stocks have been de-risked because information is more easily accessible on corporate fundamentals.  In the 1880's, information on railroad stocks sometimes took hours or days to reach investors.  In the 1920's, information still took a few minutes, sometimes an hour or so.  Today, information takes seconds or less.

Yields are less important to total return compared to growth.  And I say that as a dividend and value investor.

Total BS

"information" has nothing to do with valuation or prices.  Same false causality fallacy. How many times have you heard someone say something is only worth what someone will pay for it?  More than I can count.  But supposedly, that doesn't apply to "investments" because that's derived from "fundamentals"

This belief is also based upon the bogus "discounting" claim from the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH).  I haven't heard anyone mention EMH in decades (since it's completely absurd) but that's what's still implicitly consensus belief and it's believed due to the concurrent belief in the impact of "fundamentals", not just present but future.

There is no "discounting" in the implied sense.  “The market” (market participants collectively) can’t discount anything, because it’s an anthropomorphic abstraction from collective “investor” belief in false causality.  It’s absurd to believe “the market” somehow “knows” anything.  “The market” isn’t alive knowing what individuals know collectively.  That’s a quasi-form of pantheism and another “rabbit hole” altogether. 

As for individuals, I infer they believe this implicitly, when there is any evaluation at all (e.g., not “meme” stocks.)  In at least one post, you cited behavior that “investors” typically (if not usually) put more research into the purchase of a low to mid-priced consumer good, like a toaster oven.  This should be expected, since the vast majority of “investors” don’t “invest” directly and direct stock purchases represent a (decreasing) minority of share ownership.  They “invest” on auto pilot (e.g., 401K) through index funds or delegating stock selection to money managers.  When buying shares directly, “Investors” are also mostly ignorant of economics and accounting, know little if anything about statistics and present value, mostly don’t know anything about or understand the business represented by the company shares they buy, and how other “fundamentals” supposedly relate to stock prices.  So how can they discount anything where this information you have repeatedly referenced makes any difference?

The answer is they can’t, meaning this supposed discounting is actually psychological as I told you, not an analysis of how events ("information") supposedly impact prices economically.  It’s what ‘investors” believe and acting on this belief that matters, not the event(s) or aby supposed "information".

What about quantitative valuation methods, more common among institutions?  It’s still psychologically based, because these predictive methods use assumptions biased by the user’s optimism or pessimism.  There is no objective valuation method since there is no correct value.  There is relative value, but since discounting attempts to predict future returns, it cannot avoid subjectivity either.

Look at the dot.com bubble, current “bubble” stocks, “meme” stocks, “disruptors”, “unicorns”, and serial money losers.  Consensus implicitly admits these prices are psychologically determined while concurrently believing other prices are the result of the “fundamentals”.  The same psychology responsible for “bubbles” accounts for all prices, all the time, without exception. “Investors” don’t “accurately” judge value “rationally”, except when “bubbles” occur.  Believing this is a total absurdity since value is an arbitrary abstract mental construct. 

Value is an arbitrary mental construct.  It’s not contingent on anything, except collective perception.  That’s why it fluctuates so radically independently of any supposed “fundamentals”.  That’s why a raging mania (the one we have now) facilitated by deranged government policy (since at least 2008) can inflate fake “wealth” to such ridiculous heights, unlike real wealth requiring actual effort.  If financial values were contingent on or subject to constraints in the physical world, it wouldn’t be possible.

On 1/2/2024 at 12:34 AM, GoldFinger1969 said:

It's not anywhere NEAR the most historically overpriced market in history.  Not by a longshot. 

Yes, you keep telling me this, because you keep on claiming that the P/E multiple demonstrates it.  And you do this because you continue to believe in false causality, that prices are determined from supposed "fundamentals"    It's also evident you believe numerous other fallacies promoted by Wall Street too.

The P/E ratio is one of the least reliable valuation metrics.  It’s been a lagging indicator at major turning points during the 21st century mania, both tops and bottoms.  The ratio was higher at the 2002 low versus the 2000 peak and higher at the March 2009 low versus the October 2007 peak, the opposite of any actually useful indicator. This happens because the economy never leads stock prices (usually lagging) and earnings also lag economic performance somewhat.

Earnings are only relevant to "investors" to the extent they receive it as a dividend.  The dividend yield is barely above the all-time low from the 2000 dot.com bubble, and this is even with all the economic distortions since at least 2008 which you also completely ignore.

Earnings (cash flow) is a return on actual investment, but 99%+ of supposed “investors” are engaging in speculation, on changes in the share price.  That's what they actually bought, a stock certificate, not a "piece of a business" because the company and the company shares aren't equivalent.   Here is what 99%+ of all shareholders actually receive:

1)·A periodic dividend payment (if any) which currently is usually immaterial.

2) Voting for corporate directors, irrelevant to 99%+ of shareholders, as they have no ability to actually influence corporate policy or strategy.  That’s what makes them speculators.

3) A pro-rated share of net corporate assets in the event of liquidation.  No one actually buys any stock for this reason.

4) Right to sell at the future market price, which is speculation on potential financial appreciation whether or not the company creates any net economic value at all.  In the 21^st century mania, that’s what the “investor” is primarily buying and what’s mostly reflected in the share price for most US stocks.

“Investors” acquire specific legal rights with share ownership (see my list below), but don’t possess the required characteristics of actual business owners; any semblance of decision-making authority.  If you have enough influence to make your “voice” heard, you’re an actual investor.  In theory if not in practice, that’s board members, selective members of the C-Suite (CEO, COO, CFO), and anyone who can actually influence these people or select them, but no one else.   If you can’t make your “voice” heard, then you own “a piece of paper”, earnings are of no direct relevance to you, and you are a speculator. 

That's all I can write for this post, but I have plenty more to add if neccessary.

On 11/5/2023 at 11:04 PM, VKurtB said:

@World Colonial's view STARTS WITH an answer which he has decided is true, and he backfills everything else to comport with that view. That's not analysis. It's a broken clock being right twice a day. Someday a major correction will happen. Of course it will. It's a better than 50/50 bet I'll be dead by then. I can't bother with that much fear. My finances fear only one thing - the same guy in the White House 2 years from now. I NEED a government committed to economic GROWTH, not the economics of make believe scarcity.

"90% of Electric Vehicles are still on the road. The other 10% made it back home."

Just saw this post.  My claims don't have anything to do with what you wrote here. 

The prior post exchanges were about (relative) valuation, not market direction.  I haven't ever made a timing claim because there is no predetermined limit to an asset mania (the one we have now) and the reason there isn't is because prices and valuation have nothing to do with "fundamentals" which is what you and practically everyone else believes.

If anyone wants to buy the most historically overpriced US market in history (currently within a few percent), then go ahead and do it.  But that’s what anyone is actually buying, not what Wall Stret consensus or anyone here claims.

There is no predetermine price limit with financial instruments because prices have nothing to do with "fundamentals".  This is why “crypto” (which is actually nothing) has value, tens of trillions in sub-basement garbage quality debt instruments are priced at such low yields, and so many US stocks have sold for such ridiculous prices for so long.  

As for your comment on "growth", you and I have discussed this several times. There is a difference between what you claim I believe (a "make believe scarcity") and what you have told me in the past.  A supposed "new normal" and "something for nothing" where you have implied prosperity can be permanently increased by deficit spending and "printing".  If this is what you actually meant, it's a belief in modern alchemy.

Previous metal in the commonly used context more or most closely relates to a store of value or role in the monetary system.  Today, that's primarily gold.

Silver has substantially lost its monetary substitute role, whether this is temporary or not.  It has no role in the monetary system at all, while gold is still included at scale in central bank reserves.  This changing perception is evident in the expanding and consistently higher gold-silver ratio since 1980.

Platinum and Palladium are industrial metals, regardless that a few mints strike one or both as NCLT.  Russia is the only country to my recollection striking a platinum circulating coin and I've never heard of a single one in palladium.  This is evident in the relative price between gold and both, even as gold is a lot more common.

There are also other metals that might qualify as "precious" to some "metal bugs" or coin collectors, though I have no idea if it's feasible to strike it as NCLT.  I've seen 1oz rhodium bars for sale by golddealer.com, same as palladium around 2005 years before it was used to strike NCLT.

On 12/31/2023 at 8:53 PM, GoldFinger1969 said:

Even if, unlike with U.S. coins, NGC has dominant market share in foreign/world coins and theirs sell at a premium ?

I don't think either service consistently sells at a premium over the other.  Too few grading events to compare 99%+ of the time too.

On 12/31/2023 at 6:12 PM, GoldFinger1969 said:

I'd personally rather debate an occasisionally misgraded slider by the TPGs....or a coin over or undergraded by 1-2 grades...or a questionable Details grade.....then have novices buying coins at prices 5-15 grades too high as was done in the 1960's and 1970's and early-180's. 

It's primarily a problem due to the financialization of collecting which created the higher price level.

When the price level was primarily the result of actual collecting and not financially motivated buying, the quality differences you describe were less important or not important at all.  Same for fakes, as this is substantially also mostly the result of the much higher price level.

On 12/18/2023 at 1:49 PM, zadok said:

...there r many influences on this current trend...dealers incentives, customers preferences, perceptions on graders, lag times, premiums on sales, registry sets on n on...but there is one factor we do not have access to that mite indicate the real story...crossovers, which way is this tide moving??....

South African based collectors prefer NGC by a substantial margin, as evidenced by the relative number graded (they buy most of it) and volume of listings on their version of eBay.

There are a few pillars I have seen crossed by PCGS forum members from NGC holders.  Not sure why they did this, as there certainly is no consistently higher premium that I can see since there isn't even enough data to conclude.

The 1765 Peru 4R MS-62 in both pop reports is the same coin.  So is my 1759 MS-63 Peru 2R.

On 12/18/2023 at 11:39 AM, Fenntucky Mike said:

The current NYINC auction listings seem more inline with what I would normally expect as far as a split between NGC and PCGS, 3:1 or higher depending on which auction/session, auctions prior to this were much closer with the split or seemingly flipped. 

NGC won the grading for the Emilio Ortiz collection of Latin American 1/4R, 422 lots.  Conversely, Pat Johnson's collection sold last year was PCGS.

On 12/17/2023 at 10:27 AM, Fenntucky Mike said:

Triopoly, with CACG at the top and everybody wondering if all the U.S. coins in PCGS and NGC holders weren't good enough to cross. I wonder if this possibility has anything to do with the number of world coins in brand new PCGS holders hitting the market the past 6 months. I've never seen so many PCGS world coins, they don't pull in premiums like PCGS U.S. coins do over NGC U.S. typically 

Premiums for CAC stickered coins will probably go up multiples compared to any of the three TPG slabs if/when they stop. 

I mostly own NGC coins, somewhat by default.  But for pillar coinage and South Africa (Union and ZAR), I have seen a higher proportion of better quality for the grade coins.  Concurrently, NGC has graded a lot more of both.

On 12/23/2023 at 11:38 AM, VKurtB said:

Do my dividend yields mean nothing? At my age, I do favor dividend paying stocks in the account I manage personally. With a week to go, it LOOKS LIKE my best performing stock will be Truist Bank. Great dividend. 

I'm not criticizing you.  That was not my intent.

The dividend absolutely means something (a lot) but in and of itself doesn't change the definition of speculation and investment.  Before the current mania, it represented the majority of the return for the US stock market.  That's what should be expected in any "normal" market environment.

A higher dividend means it's relatively less speculative and by this metric, the US stock market is close to the most speculative ever.  The dividend yield on the DJIA (2%) and S&P 500 (1.5%) is a razor's edge above the all-time early 2000 low.

The ability of a company to pay dividends is a function of the actual fundamentals.  Corporate management's decision to establish the dividend payout rate is substantially psychological (from numerous factors) and the price of the stock essentially entirely so because the company and the stock certificate aren't equivalent.

On 11/22/2023 at 10:27 AM, GoldFinger1969 said:

For me, since I like collectiing gold coins (why couldn't I choose a LESS expensive hobby ?  ) it all boils down to SUPPLY and DEMAND.

Supply is pretty constant and small on a CAGR basis....but demand grows at a nice pace especially in burgeoning countries like China, India, and other countries that have huge numbers of newly-created middle-class consumers. 

Prices are set by the marginal buyer.  It doesn't take that many of them to move the price of anything up or down substantially.

That's your best argument.

This is evident in the price of any publicly tradeable asset.  On any given day, the price change of the biggest moving stocks usually occurs with a (very) low fraction of outstanding shares changing ownership.

On 11/21/2023 at 9:22 PM, VKurtB said:

Gold is a PURELY speculative play. There are no fundamentals for gold. I realize some, including some on this site, regard gold as the counter-play for inflation or a play against excess money supply, but the facts and history do NOT BEAR THAT OUT. Gold ALWAYS overcorrects, in BOTH directions.

With all supposed "investors", there is no difference between "investing" and speculation.  I'm not singling you out with this comment either, because this is what practically everyone believes.

In the current global asset mania, calling speculation "investment" is mostly (not entirely, as a low proportion know it consciously) a rationalization from ignorance to convince yourself that paying what are disproportionately absurd or inflated prices isn’t taking high or unprecedented risk but somehow magically becomes low risk or “prudent”.

I know everyone has been told they are “investing”, but if I ask anyone for an actual difference between “investing” (mostly in tradeable markets) and speculation, the only answer they can give me is the holding period which is completely arbitrary. 

You've heard the saying if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is one.  99%+ of stock “investing” (or other asset buying) is indistinguishable from speculation, so what does that tell everyone? (It's attempting to generate a currency profit from buying and selling without producing anything.)

The inferred supposed distinction between "investing" and speculation is "market timing".  Everyone is a market timer, whether they know it or not.  It's literally unavoidable, unless the person lives in an alternate parallel universe where there is no time.  This doesn't mean that everyone has to be a "trader", it just means that there is only good timing and bad timing. 

On 11/5/2023 at 10:25 PM, GoldFinger1969 said:

Second, earnings are what you have to use.  There are discrepancies at times with GAAP or Operating EPS, but by and large they have gone up 7% a year since 1960 and provided real growth that outstrips inflation and any other asset class.  Free cash flow also backs this up.  Earnings are real and when they go up, stocks go up

No, it isn't, and my comment isn't contingent upon GAAP though it's a weakness of using it.

When I make the comments I make on any financial subject, I'm not just "making it up".  That's what most people do, including what most people read in the financial press, writing nonsensical claptrap.  

It's what I told you in my last post.  Earnings are an accounting number to 99% of all supposed "investors".  It's of no direct relevance to them outside the dividend because that's the only return they actually get from the company 99%+ of the time.  This growth you are talking about isn't what you imply either, because the price of the "piece of paper" most "investors" actually buy isn't contingent upon what you are claiming either.  The price of any stock certificate (what they actually bought) is almost entirely contingent upon psychological perception, not the supposed "fundamentals" which never bought or sold a single share of stock, or anything else for that matter.

As for Hussman, yes, I know his track has been terrible, because we are in a mania.  The one you deny exists.  It's not practical for me to write a book here but you can ask me any question you want on any financial subject, and I can give you or anyone else a detailed explanation for any claim I make.

So yes, by all means if you want to start another thread on this subject, go ahead and do it.

Sorry, not my series.  I'm also not the most qualified to express an opinion on authenticity.

There are a lot of fakes for Bust 8R.

On 11/5/2023 at 7:11 PM, VKurtB said:

This is what you believe because this is what you WANT to believe. I don't know what metric informs you thusly. My equities (20%ish) are in high flying tech firms. My main assets are in sovereign debt intended to be held to maturity. And I have about 5% in an account I manage personally and write covered call options.

You're using the P/E ratio too?

Read my reply above.